Tracy citizens have a chance to learn more about the city's
2002 budget and property tax levy next week.

A public hearing on the levy and budget is set in city council
chambers Monday, Dec. 3, at 6:30 p.m. Administrator Audrey
Koopman will give a short presentation about the budget. Citizens
will be given a chance to share opinions and ask questions.

A preliminary levy adopted in September showed a 37.5%
increase in the city's 2002 property tax levy. However, Tuesday
night, the council discussed taking steps that would pare the
levy increase to about 31.7%.

Principal and interest payments on a $1.5 million swimming
pool bond are a major factor in next year's increase. For 2002,
city taxpayers are required to pay $126,114 in principal and
interest obligations on the pool bond. The pool bond, which is
being used to pay for new outdoor aquatic center scheduled now
under construction, was approved by voters in February. Next
year's bond payments are the first in a 20-year obligation.

Council members must finalize the city's 2002 property tax
levy and budget before year-end. They can reduce the preliminary
levy okayed in September, but can not increase it.

17"

Southwest Minnesota continued to dig out from a
Monday and Tuesday snow storm that dumped 17" of snow in
Tracy.

At. 8am Wednesday, the Minnesota Department of
Transportation was advising no unnecessary travel on state
highways in Southwest Minnesota. although snowplow crews were out
working, highways remained heavily snow-compacted and slippery.
Many rough sports and ruts remained on roadways where wet snow
had frozen into ice.

The heavy wet snowfall began early Monday and
intensified Tuesday. Three inches was recorded on Monday and 14
on Tuesday in Tracy. High winds Tuesday added poor visibility to
the slippery conditions. The state highway department advised no
travel for most of Tuesday in Southwest Minnesota.

Many businesses, schools and governmental
institutions closed early Monday and remained closed Tuesday.

Tracy Public Schools and St. Mary's School
closed at 10am Monday. The schools remained closed all day
Tuesday. School started two hours late Wednesday morning. Other
area schools had similar schedules. Southwest State University in
Marshall had a rare closing on Tuesday, joining many other
businesses that closed down operations.

Marshall reported 20" of snowfall, Slayton
18" and Pipestone 15." Willmar had the dubious
distinction of the most snow, with a two-day total of about 29
inches.

TNT promotes technology asnew
economic engine in region

Nowhere in Southwest Minnesota is there a Technology and
Telecommunications (TNT) building.

The organization isn't listed in the Yellow Pages and it
doesn't own any real estate. TNT doesn't have a shiny fleet of
service trucks or even a manufactured product. The TNT logo isn't
apt to make people forget AT&T or Microsoft anytime soon.

Yet only 18 months after its inception, TNT has established a
major presence in an 18-county area of Southwest Minnesota.

We are sometimes overwhelmed with what has been
accomplished in a short period of time, comments Sherry
Ristau, director of the Southwest Minnesota Foundation.

The TNT network is a consortium of business, governmental, and
educational entities whose goal is to promote economic
development through the use of technology. The City of Tracy and
Tracy Economic Development Authority two of TNT's
stakeholdersprovided $10,000 of TNT's $400,000
start-up cost.

There is so much potential in this region, it boggles
the mind, comments Chuck Myrbach, a TNT board member from
Marshall. But we have to get out in front of it (use of
technology).

How well Southwest Minnesota embraces and uses technology now,
Myrbach says, will be felt hundreds of years from
now. Not adapting to change, and not developing the
infrastructure needed for the new information age, he warned,
would have a profoundly negative impact on the region.

We need to think of technology as our modern-day
economic development tool, remarks Frank Cesario, the lead
consultant in the TNT project. Utilizing technology and
telecommunications can be a new economic engine for this
region.

This Ol' Place

When the opportunity to buy the Al's Bar building in Garvin
presented itself last month, Dennis and Myra Kronke decided to
take it.

We just decided to go for it, Myra Kronke said.

The Kronkes are no strangers to the Garvin community. Until a
few years ago, when the two were married, Dennis lived three
miles from Garvin.

Before buying the business, Myra Kronke baby-sat her
grandchildren. She has also worked as a decorator, and is an
organist. Dennis Kronke is a truck driver.

The couple has big plans for the business, which they have
re-named This Ol' Place. They plan to remodel the
entire building, and add new bathrooms, convenience store, and
possibly gas pumps on the north side of the business.

The Kronkes will continue to operate the bar and grill portion
of the business as well. Jana Moon will serve as general manager
and Jon Kronke will be bartender.

We don't have a full-course menu yet, Myra Kronke
said.

She said she will be sitting down with her daughter, Jana
Moon, to come up with the menu.

Schwan's plans grand opening for R
& D facility

Schwan's Sales Enterprises, Inc., will
celebrate the grand opening of its new $12 million Research and
Development Center in the Marshall industrial park, November 30,
at 1pm.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony and remarks from
company and city leaders will highlight the event.

The 75,000-square-foot facility features fully
equipped culinary kitchens, sensory labs, bench labs, pilot labs
and a pilot plant custom-designed to support Schwan's research
and product development process.

"The new facility is a key component in
Schwan's new strategy for approaching market opportunities and
competitive challenges," said Doug Olsem, vice president for
Strategic Development. "The Research and Development Center
is another giant step toward Schwan's goal of bringing the
highest-level technologies and the brightest minds in the food
business together."

Gaining market and marketing savvy and keeping detailed
records are as important to an independent farmer as the weather
- and computers make this work faster and easier.

This advice comes from agribusiness consultants interviewed
following their presentations at the 2001 Farm Outlook Seminar at
Southwest State University in Marshall. Seminar topics centered
on trends affecting market conditions for various crop and
livestock products.

"There's a point for all of us that if we don't keep up
with the times and understanding things, we're no good to
ourselves, or anybody else," said Jerry Gulke, analyst and
owner of Strategic Marketing Services, a research and information
analysis firm based in Rockford, Ill. "From a technical
standpoint, [farmers] need to have all the information they can
get from whatever source they can get it from, and of course the
computers, the global positioning systems and yield monitoring
helps."

Information for marketing

The Internet is loaded with data to help farmers grasp a
global range of factors that influence prices and that when
translated into market strategies play a role in determining the
success, or failure of a growing, or breeding season, Gulke said.
Minimally, computers offer precise record-keeping.

"What I see coming with the GMO issues, and now with foot
and mouth and BSE [mad cow disease] and all this stuff, we will
want to keep very detailed records of what we put on our crops,
where we did it, how we did it," Gulke said. "It may
become a requirement, depending upon who's the head of the EPA
[Environmental Protection Agency], or what consumer pressures
there are.

"In Japan, they would like to see the face of the guy on
the bag who grew the beans that they're going to eat in their
tofu. They would like to go all the way back to the farmer. It
could give identity preservation a whole new name. Setting aside
our crop that has a certain identity - and we can guarantee it -
might reap a lot more rewards than what we suspect, and
technology helps us to do it."

Agriculture lags

About 75 percent of the firm's clients use computers for
record-keeping and research, said Jeff Beal, a consultant with
the firm who is based in Arizona. In agriculture in general, this
rate drops to an estimated 40, to 45 percent.

"You've got to realize that if you're a farmer out there
with 1,000 acres, and you're competing in a county that has 100
farmers in a similar situation and 80 of them are boning up on
their marketing, studying and using the tools and doing a better
job of hedging than you, at some point they're going to come
after you," Beal said. "They may hire you to run the
tractor, which is fine if that's all you're interested in doing.
The encouraging part is that Jerry's been doing this seminar for
six years, and this is the first year that we've had an overflow
crowd. This tells me people want to learn."

More than 300 people attended the seminar, among them John
Geurts, who uses a home computer for record-keeping and research.
Geurts, who has a two-year degree in marketing and sales, farms
1,700 acres of corn and beans in Lyon County.